


Flights of Spring

by Arlyshawk



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: F/M, Heart-to-Heart, Horseback Riding, Pet Names, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 10:32:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4260006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arlyshawk/pseuds/Arlyshawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elia Tabris has never ridden a horse before so her Second, Nathaniel Howe, takes it upon himself to teach her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flights of Spring

"You have never ridden a horse before?" 

Heat rips up her neck and pricks her ears. With a nervous hand, she rakes it through her blonde hair, destroying the delicate early morning braid she had thrown together half asleep. She narrows her sage green eyes at her boots and scuffs them against the flagstones. She can feel Nathaniel's curious gaze training on her. The idea that the Warden Commander of Ferelden cannot ride a horse is blasphemy to most. 

"Yes.." Elia says, furiously trying to cover up her ears that burn with embarrassment with her hands. "I grew up in an Alienage. There was no need for horses." 

"Well, you can't expect every Warden-Commander, much less the First Warden, to come here," Nathaniel explains and she lifts her gaze up to his. There is a faint smile of knowing on his face and her gut clenches at the sight of it. "This will be good for you, I promise." 

He offers her his hand and she takes it. His hand is warm in her icy one, less callused on the fingertips than the other one. They're thicker on his dominant hand, she notices as he guides her to a bay palfrey. And though a part of her wants to claw him for touching her, it.. does not cause the uproar that it used to. 

"This is Birch," Nathaniel says, letting the palfrey touch his hand and then moves their conjoined hands near its nose. The horse's muzzle is velvety against her hand, sniffing, searching. It reminds Elia of a dog searching for a piece of dropped food, nostrils flexing just so as the mare looks for any food. Her Second's voice is soft above her, "She likes you." 

"How do you know?" Elia lets her hand go from Nathaniel's to go around the palfrey's cheek and then to its plush ears. She reaches up on her tip toes to reach the mare's crown where hair meets her bare palm. It's course and blacker than fresh ink. She loves the feel of the quivering, chestnut fur that smells of oat soap. Dimly, she is aware of how close the two of them are. Nathaniel's breathing is faint in her hearing, the scratch and scrape of his boots in the gravel make her spine tingle. 

Nathaniel reaches out and pats the mare's thick neck, "Intuition." 

"Oh very funny," Elia whispers and shifts back onto her heels. Tilting her head back, she meets his grey stare. "But really? How do you know?" 

Birch nudges her hand with her muzzle with earnest, "That - for one." 

"She likes me, but that doesn't mean I can ride her. For all we know, she's plotting to throw me into a tree." 

Nathaniel turns her so they face each other. There are pinpricks of starlight in his smoke-grey eyes, the eyes that she has come to love see change with her Second's mood. Her stomach does flip-flops and she tries her best to shut out the need to go storming off to her solar where she can stop seeing those eyes and the slightly crooked way he smiles. Elia gnaws the inside of her cheek as he abandons her side to grab a saddle and blanket. 

"I highly doubt she'll throw you, Lia," He says all too lightheartedly for her liking. He slings the silver blanket over Birch's back and then the saddle, shifting them together until they come just below the mare's withers. 

She blinks over the mare's back at him, "Lia?" 

Nathaniel's eyes go wide for a moment and he begins busying himself with cinching the saddle with clumsy fingers. "Do you not like it? I can always take it back." 

Elia manages a secretive smile, though he cannot see it, "I like it, Nate." 

The thought of a nickname makes her heart do a jump in her chest and she folds her arms over her sternum to watch him tack Birch. Never in all of her life has she felt warmth blossom in her chest. For a brief moment, she thinks she might be foolish but… The thought of getting closer to Nathaniel is certainly not a bad idea. 

~.~.~ 

He will not deny watching Elia learn how to ride Birch is not funny. She has a short temper with things that do not comply like she wants and Birch is a stubborn thing. The mare often backs up when Elia wants her to go forward, forward when she means backward. Once, Elia was thrown from Birch and his commander swore off horses for a week while she nursed a rather large bump on her head. Now, she improves daily, getting more confident to the point where he can sit on the railing and instruct. 

Elia laughs when she rides Birch. It’s a free laugh, one that carries on the wind and goes through her dark gold hair as she wheels the mare around in a wide circle and the horse throws her head up. It brings a smile to his face whenever he hears her laugh because it's such a rare sound. It's like the tinkling of silver bells on a clear day and it makes him remember of when she never laughed at all and wore a sour frown. 

"Nathaniel!" Elia calls out to him from atop Birch, her smile brightening her face like a star. "Come ride with me!" 

He approaches her, carefully minding the way Birch's ears flick toward him. "Are you sure?" 

She wears her confidence as bright as sun fire and he cannot think of anything else that fits her better. It brings a rosiness to her cheeks and lightens her green eyes. She gives him a nod, one that sends her braid swaying just a bit. 

He gives her a deep bow, "As milady commands." 

As he straightens, he can see Elia hiding a giggle behind her hand though her eyes betray her. "Whatever am I going to do with you?" 

"Someone has to put up with me," He says archly as he hops the railing to the stables to fetch tack. As he passes by a stable, he whistles for a horse that he has not ridden since the time of the Architect - which truthfully isn't too long ago now that he thinks on it. The gelding is a freckled roan that has two white socks on its hind legs. He tacks the gelding quickly, mounts up, and then rides beside his commander, who casts a green eye over at him through the wispy strands of her hair. 

A panel of sunlight hits her and her hair turns to the color of beaten gold that has kisses of brown. Atop horses, he is taller than her by a good head or two. When he stands beside her on solid ground, the top of her head comes to his collarbone. If he so wanted, he would pick her up in his arms though she would kick and scream. He is taken from his reverie when he sees Birch move away from him and toward the gate, which Elia nudges open with the point of her boot. 

"Where do you want to ride out to, if you do not mind me asking?" He nudges his horse along and follows after his commander. 

"Out here," She gestures to the forest that now blossoms in the pallid warmth of spring. He spurs his gelding after Birch and they ride together into the newly grown thicket of oak trees and uncoiling ferns. 

There is lavender and foxglove nearby that colors the shadowed forest with droplets of hue and wafts a sweet scent faintly in the air that hovers near them. They talk for a long while, learning the other. He begins to see the layers of hardened steel that lie between him and Elia melt away into rain droplets on her skin and he finds that she is a being of flame, warm and welcoming yet capable of burning him if he does not play his hand right. And yet, she lets him hold her in his hand and marvel at who she is. 

"To be honest, I didn't want this life. But if I had stayed where I had been, I would be dead," Elia tells him as he helps her down from atop Birch. She is light in his arms, though she is taut with reservation until he releases her and steps away. "Maybe my life would have been different… Maybe I would've lived and… Forget it." 

"It's nothing to forget, Lia," Nathaniel corrects and stands in between her and Birch. Her green eyes go wide as she stares up at him, hands folding over her sternum. "I wish the same as you, but I know that we cannot change what has transpired. We must look beyond ourselves." 

"Wise words," Her voice is dry, cracking just a touch. "I would have lived a life of imprisonment. Nothing more." 

"Imprisonment?" 

"I was to be married the day Duncan conscripted me. It never happened and I was forced into an iron cage again to be someone's little plaything. I ended up killing a man before Duncan took me away, kicking and screaming," She chuckles and it hurts his heart. It’s a bitter sound, bearing no love for the situation and she looks at up at him with green eyes burning. "Turns out I was only forced to being in another cage." 

And for a brief moment, he thinks he might be able to touch her, just a touch and nothing more. However, the anger on her face is enough to stay his thoughts. It etches itself in her eyes and in the downturn of her mouth. It sends his heart into a icy frenzy, out of trepidation for breathing, much less speaking to her directly. 

Yet her name falls from his lips and she blinks and looks away from him to her boots. "Forgive me, Nate. That was wrong of me, you don't deserve my hatred. You've been by my side the entire time. And that is all I could ever ask for." 

"Of course, Commander." 

"No…" This time she touches his upper arm with soft fingertips and his skin prickles at it. "Elia… Out here, beyond the walls of Amaranthine and Vigil's Keep, I'm Elia. And that might change if you like it." 

He cocks an eyebrow, "Would you?" 

The city elf gets a grin on her face that reminds him of a fox, "I listen to _Commander_ this, _Commander_ that. I like it when people I care about say my name. Stops me from tuning it out." 

She takes back her hand and slips away from him and into the thicket of flowers. And Nathaniel enjoys watching her pick lavender, foxglove, and violets for a good while as his head swims. She cares, he thinks while holding the reins to the horses and watches as she tucks a violet behind her pointed ear and moves on. When she comes back and stuffs the flowers into her saddlebag and they ride off, they do not speak. Its quiet… 

And he could not be happier. 


End file.
